The Emperor's Mercy
by big cheddars
Summary: Few can boast they have seen a planet die. Even fewer live through it to make that boast. Please review guys!


Grit filled Keta's mouth. A slab of rockcrete from the destroyed apartment pinned her leg, and the limb was numb. Her arm was bleeding from a gash by the daemonette's whip. The daemonette staring at Keta with a vicious mix of pleasure and anger on her face.

Keta tried to raise her head, give the daemonette a defiant glare. But she was blinded by the bright light shining over the Chaos creature's shoulder. Keta looked at the illuminated sky, and saw the roiling swathes of cloud filling it. Her heart lifted with hope.

The daemonette's tongue flickered out, and a sibilant hiss reached Keta's ears. The daemonette crouched down, and ran a scaly talon down the front of Keta's fatigues. Keta shut her eyes to the cruel beauty of that alien face, but she could not shut her ears.

"Pretty little scum, aren't you." The words were like rapiers of sound, piercing Keta and testing her purity with their touch. The guardswoman looked up defiantly, challenging the daemonette.

"And you are forsaken of the God-Emperor, and beneath contempt, daemon!"

A shrill laugh pained Keta's eardrums, and the daemonette casually raked her talons down Keta's body. The woman screamed, and the daemonette laughed louder, revelling in the human's pain.

Keta sobbed as the damonette ceased her torture, trying desperately to put up a show of servile complacency. Racking fits of sobs that made her cough and cry. Her olive-green fatigues were little more than ripped shreds, exposing her bloodied skin and the remnants of her underwear. Keta tried to rise, to see her injuries better, but the daemonette flicked her back down with a snarl.

"What is your leaders' plan, insect?" The daemonette leaned close, and her eyes, as malicious as they were, ensnared Keta. Keta shook her head, her eyes wide in feigned fear.

"I don't know, I'm just a soldier!" Keta made her voice low, pained, and scared. The daemonette slapped her, and Keta involuntarily yelped at the pain.

A sudden flash of light shifted Keta's attention, and she looked to the sky. The clouds seemed angry, rolling and broiling like an angry sea in the grip of a storm. Something was up there, and Keta prayed to every saint she knew that it was the Solution. Keta's eyes widened in awe and rapture.

The daemonette was insulted by its new-found pet's lack of attention, and the creature grinned evilly as it wrenched the woman's shoulder out of its socket. Keta screamed again, her face now covered in a gritty mix of dust and tears and blood. She pleaded in a low, defeated voice, but the daemonette ignored her.

"You would ignore me insect!" The daemonette's cackling laughter filled Keta's ears. The daemonette slapped her, and then left, evidently bored of Keta's screams. It stood, and left Keta with her tears of joy and pain.

Keta sobbed, keeping her fragile body on the floor in a servile position. The daemonette came stalking back over, and snapped at her. "Your people are dead, scum, their bodies rotting as the servants of my lady feast. You will die too, in time!." The cruel words struck at Keta, but the guardswoman was again looking at the sky.

Keta bled from dozens of wounds, but her eyes were now cold and hard, and focussed on something in the clouds above. The tears she had shed were gone, as was the mock servitude..

"You will die too, creature, just as I will. The difference is that I go to my destiny with grace." The daemonette whirled, and then tracked Keta's eyes to the glare in the sky.

The clouds were parting now, creating a cyclone of stormy wisps which something generated as it fell through the sky. A shining metallic shape. To the daemonette, it was just another shooting star coming from the heavens. To Keta, it was an exterminatus bomb, launched from an Imperial cruiser in orbit and destined to smash the plant's atmosphere apart, killing anything left on its surface.

Keta fixed the daemonette with a look filled with contempt and loathing. Her eyes shined anew with belief in her deity, the Emperor, and his mercy. Her last words were chilling, even to the hardened being of Chaos.

"The Emperor's blessing be upon those who work in His divine light." The ground shook as the huge bomb smashed through the planet's invisible life-giving skin.

"The Emperor's mercy be upon those who fight and perish in His most glorious name." Keta lifted herself up on her unbroken arm, and fixed the daemonette with flaming eyes of hatred.

"The Emperor's wrath be upon those who would deny His might to be master of the heavens and the galaxy." The daemonette was screaming now, screaming in futility and rage. Keta lifted her eyes to the sky, and her last sight was of thousands of stars looking down on a dying planet.


End file.
